Overview

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Professor Ian Holtham

BA(Hons) DipEd PhD (Melb) BMus (Hons) (Durham) FTCL ARCM LRAM LGSM

Head of Keyboard
Professor Ian Holtham is one of the most distinguished and highly regarded pianists and pedagogues in Australia and his performances of the great Classical and Romantic repertoire have played to packed houses and rave reviews for many years. He has led the Keyboard area at the University of Melbourne since 1998. In 1999 he was invited to become the inaugural Head of Studies at the Australian National Academy of Music - a position he held for a year in addition to his position at the University of Melbourne.

Prof Holtham studied with Peter Feuchtwanger, Geza Anda, as well as with Geoffrey Parsons and Enrique Barenboim in Europe for over five years during the 1970s. He also studied Composition and Conducting at the Guildhall School of Music. He has performed throughout Europe, Asia and Australia and has broadcast regularly with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation since the late seventies appearing as a soloist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, as well as with various orchestras and conductors over many years. He is one of Australia’s most senior pianists and has performed and given Masterclasses throughout Australia, Europe and Asia over the last three decades. Prof Holtham is a Steinway artist and established the Melbourne Conservatorium as the only institution of higher musical training in the Southern Hemisphere which is a Steinway School. He has been the Chair of the Australian Music Examinations Board in Victoria for most of this century, is the Chair of the national AMEB piano syllabus and has served five terms as the elected Federal Chair of the AMEB.

Prof Holtham has published a seminal text on piano technique, and was piano adviser and contributor to the Oxford Companion to Australian Music. He has also been the Editor of the two editions of the AMEB Technical Work Book and has